by DailyDigest

Economy

From the outset, U.S. oil companies have feared that Venezuela might someday use its oil revenues to benefit its overall population instead of letting the U.S. oil industry and its local comprador aristocracy siphon off its wealth. So the oil industry – backed by U.S. diplomacy – held Venezuela hostage in two ways.

The arrival of the aid convoy on Thursday, which was organised jointly by the US and Venezuelan opposition leaders, came a day after Venezuela barricaded its own side of the border vowing not to allow entry.

SoftBank Group said it would repurchase 112 million shares worth 600 billion yen (approx $5.46 billion) in the next 11 months, or about 10.3 percent of its total outstanding shares, excluding treasury stock. That came as the company announced a more than 50 percent surge in its net income for the first three quarters of the fiscal year.

“We want it to have a game element. We want to cheer up numismatics which is a dying area. Probably, a very small number of young people are now interested in collecting, but this is what central banks do, and we think of ways to remain in this changing environment.”

“Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform how we live and how businesses operate, and this partnership with IBM will help ensure New York continues to be on the cutting edge developing innovative technologies,” Cuomo said in a statement.

Like many similar startups, Aurora is focused on developing a driverless system rather than producing full-fledged cars. You could integrate its technology into various vehicles, and companies like Hyundai and VW have already pledged to use Aurora software in their cars by 2021. Amazon could use this for self-driving cargo and courier vehicles, reducing its need for human drivers (like it or not) and speeding up delivery times by keeping products moving around the clock.

In almost every instance, US regime change interventions around the world have been motivated either directly or indirectly by commercial considerations, and were undertaken to restore or protect the primacy of US business interests in foreign lands. And in many cases, the interventions paved the way for the installation of rightwing dictatorships.

Other former employees of President Trump’s company live nearby: men who once raked the sand traps and pushed mowers through thick heat on Trump’s prized golf property — the “Summer White House,” as aides have called it — where his daughter Ivanka got married and where he wants to build a family cemetery.

Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders. It is done slowly, so the victim doesn’t realize how much they’ve been brainwashed. For example, in the movie Gaslight (1944), a man manipulates his wife to the point where she thinks she is losing her mind.

First, this announcement means the end of the big Ford Taurus sedan in the United States, at least for now. These factories currently manufacture the Taurus alongside the outgoing Ford Explorer, but there’s no all-new Taurus coming to the U.S. market. If you had any doubts that Ford is serious about eliminating sedans from its North American product portfolio, erase them.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Markey finally unveiled a resolution on February 7, sketching out the framework of future legislation. The bill was necessarily done in broad strokes for several reasons. The Democrats have to wait until 2021 at the earliest before trying to pass something. Keeping everyone on board, at this stage, requires some finessing, leaving some difficult decisions for later. And, of course, detailing the nitty gritty of a complete transformation of America’s energy system will take time.

So oceans are key, and they are telling us a clear story. The last five years were the five hottest on record. The numbers are huge: in 2018 the extra ocean heat compared to a 1981-2010 baseline amounted to 196,700,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules. The current rate of ocean warming is equivalent to five Hiroshima-size atomic bombs exploding every second.

“At the moment, we’re just looking at what microbats will be around and then eventually we’d like to see what microbats eat — so to see if they eat some of those insects that cause damage to the grapes,” Dr Sparrow said.

About every 400 years, the researchers found, the amount of rain falling on Japan would suddenly become extremely variable for a period. The nation would toggle between multi-decadal bouts of flood-inducing wetness and warmer, drier years that were favorable for rice cultivation. As the rains came and went, Japanese society prospered or suffered accordingly.

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6 Comments

Amazon deliveries with Driverless Trucks

I can totally see how this can work. Since current trucks have a human driver that also unloads the contents at various locations and will no longer be needed, the driverless truck can use an automatic conveyor in the back to drop your package into your street curb as it drives by without stopping. Just think of how many ways that will reduce costs for the company !

George Soros....European Union will go the way of the Soviet Uni

Opinion: Europe may be on the cusp of a nightmare, but it’s not too late to wake up
Europe is sleepwalking into oblivion, and the people of Europe need to wake up before it is too late.
If they don’t, the European Union will go the way of the Soviet Union in 1991. Neither our leaders nor ordinary citizens seem to understand that we are experiencing a revolutionary moment, that the range of possibilities is very broad, and that the eventual outcome is thus highly uncertain.
Most of us assume that the future will more or less resemble the present, but this is not necessarily so. In a long and eventful life, I have witnessed many periods of what I call radical disequilibrium. We are living in such a period today.

The EU: going the way of the soviet union

If they don’t, the European Union will go the way of the Soviet Union in 1991. Neither our leaders nor ordinary citizens seem to understand that we are experiencing a revolutionary moment, that the range of possibilities is very broad, and that the eventual outcome is thus highly uncertain.

My goodness, we hear truth at last. EU is going the way of the Soviet Union. Mr Juncker, Tear Down That Wall!!
Amusingly, the EU parliament was actually patterned after the old Soviet Duma. The Duma could only say “yes” or “no” to legislation put forward by the central committee. (And they always voted YES, if they knew what was good for them.) Similarly, the EU parliament can only say “yes” or “no” to the legislation put forward by the unelected European Commission. Voting requirements aren’t as draconian at the EU, but structurally, if you can’t initiate or repeal legislation, you’re a toothless, rubberstamp-only body. All you can do is act like a 2-year-old. NO! NO! NO! That’s it.
And the President of the EU? Surely he is elected, right?
Here’s an article I dug up from the Guardian which describes how the EU President, Mr Juncker, got into office.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/27/eu-democratic-bandwagon-juncker-president-wanted
Did “the people” vote for Juncker? My goodness no. We can’t have that. It was the usual smoke-filled room that would have done the old Tammany Hall bosses proud. No “people” were involved in Mr Juncker’s election.
If the EU goes the way of the Soviet Union, there is a reason for it: badly designed systems eventually end up on the ash heap of history. The EU was utterly undemocratic from the get-go, and it just never got any better. Anyone remember the EU-sponsored coup taking out Burlusconi in Italy? Or the Troika, punishing Greece for decades because they had the effrontery to have endangered the German and French banks?
I’m not saying the US is much better. Corporations own and operate the Congress as a branch office. But at least we can elect our President. More or less anyway. if The President does something utterly obnoxious to his constituents, he knows he will NOT get re-elected. This puts limits on just how badly he will behave towards his citizens. Mr Juncker (and the EC) have no such “feedback” from real people to their obnoxious actions.
Yeah. The EU is going the way of the Soviet Union, and for much the same reason. A badly designed system eventually dies, crushed by the weight of its design flaws.
Maybe, next time around, they’ll come up with a better design. One that involves actual democracy, perhaps.